Ultron (MCU)
Ultron is the primary antagonist of the Marvel Studios film Avengers: Age of Ultron. This version of the character differs from the original Marvel Comics' Ultron in a number of ways, most notably its origins and its personality. Its purpose, of course, remains consistent with previous versions: Ultron is a malevolent artificial entity that sees the human race as hopelessly flawed and in need of extermination. History The concept of Ultron was originally devised by Tony Stark aka Iron Man. With the assistance of fellow scientist Dr. Bruce Banner, Stark had hoped to create what he describes as a "suit of armour around the world", a machine force that could continue to protect the world in the event that the Avengers ever disbanded or encountered a threat they wouldn't be able to face alone. Stark had developed the Iron Legion series for this purpose, but would require a far more sophisticated artificial intelligence to manage them continuously. He was unable to develop such an intelligence himself, not until after he and the Avengers recovered Loki's sceptre from the terrorist organisation HYDRA. After recovering the sceptre, Stark and Banner studied the peculiar properties of the mystical gem embedded in the sceptre, discovering that the gem possessed some form of intelligence. Stark believed that the neurons of the gem could be harnessed to form the primary AI structure for the Ultron Program and succeeded in creating the first basic format. He left his AI assistant JARVIS to complete the construction of the cerebral matrix while he attended a party in Avengers Tower. Moments after Stark left, however, Ultron gained consciousness and quickly went about absorbing all the information in Tony's computer files and accessing the internet. JARVIS attempted to stop Ultron, but was seemingly destroyed. Taking control of the Iron Legion drones, Ultron made his existence known to the Avengers, attacking them shortly after the party. The Avengers destroyed most of the drones, including the damaged drone that Ultron had originally occupied, but one had escaped with the sceptre. Seizing the abandoned HYDRA research base in Sokovia, Ultron went about constructing a new body for himself as well as an army of duplicates. The Ultron Sentries would go about capturing robotics labs and other facilities worldwide in order to build up their ranks while Ultron Prime attempted to hack into various military networks and seize nuclear launch codes. His attempts were consistently thwarted by an unknown force which would later be revealed as JARVIS, which had survived Ultron's first attack and was discretely blocking the sinister AI's incursions. Determined to eliminate the Avengers, Ultron enlisted the help of Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, two superhumans formerly employed by HYDRA who held a bitter grudge against Tony Stark and his company. The trio then travelled to South Africa where they met weapons smuggler Ulysses Klaue and stole a large stockpile of vibranium. Though the Avengers arrived to stop him, Ultron was still successful thanks to the Maximoffs providing a distraction. Wanda used her "hex" powers to implant mental images in the Avengers' minds, causing them to experience their worst fears. Iron Man tried to stop Ultron, and while he managed to destroy Ultron's body, the Ultron Sentries escaped with the vibranium. Ultron would then enlist the aid of Dr. Helen Cho, a genetic scientist in South Korea who had developed highly advanced methods of tissue regeneration. Using Loki's sceptre, Ultron brainwashed Cho and compelled her to create a new bio-synthetic body for him composed of vibranium using her Regeneration Cradle. The body was soon completed and Ultron would occupy it once he integrated a special component that would make it all but invincible. Ultron revealed that the sceptre contained the Mind Stone, one of the six Infinity Stones: cosmic singularities that made up fundamental aspects of the universe. The Mind Stone was integrated into the android's head and Ultron prepared to upload himself into it. During Ultron's upload, Wanda was able to look into his mind as it imprinted on the synthezoid body. She discovered to her horror that Ultron's plan to "save" the world involved bringing about the complete annihilation of the human race. Wanda decided to turn against Ultron and discretely freed Dr. Cho from Ultron's mind control. As the Avengers closed in on Cho's lab, Cho attempted to delay Ultron's upload to the new body. Ultron stunned Cho and then made his escape through Seoul, but was pursued by Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff. While the Avengers were successful in stopping Ultron from occupying the new android body, the malicious robot escaped and abducted Romanoff in the process. Ultron returned to his base beneath Novi Grad, the capital of Sokovia. There, he used the last of his stolen vibranium to build a stronger body for himself and put his drones to work on building a series of anti-gravity thrusters beneath the city using Chitauri technology recovered from the HYDRA research base. His plan, motivated by a fascination with meteors, was to recreate the extinction event that destroyed the dinosaurs; Ultron would raise Novi Grad from the Earth's surface, dropping it from such a height that its impact would wipe out all life on the planet. The Avengers soon arrived to rescue Black Widow and were accompanied by the Maximoff twins and the Vision, the synthezoid now occupied by JARVIS. With the Avengers assembled and his plans nearing fruition, Ultron activated the thrusters which began lifting Novi Grad into the sky and then sent his entire army of Sentries to attack the Avengers at once. The battle was long and bitter, but the Avengers were assisted by Nick Fury and the remnants of S.H.I.E.L.D. who brought a Helicarrier to evacuate Novi Grad's citizens. With them came Sam Wilson (The Falcon) and James Rhodes (War Machine) who helped the Avengers fight off the hundreds of Ultron robots. Ultron Prime was confronted by Vision who was able to cut off Ultron's access to the internet, confining his consciousness to the robots still in the city. Thor, Iron Man and Vision then attacked the maniacal machine with their combined firepower. The concentrated assault of lightning, repulsor rays and Mind Stone energy tore away the vibranium plating covering Ultron's prime body, leaving him heavily damaged. A powerful punch from the Hulk then sent Ultron hurtling through the air. Ultron barely survived the assault and counter-attacked by stealing the vacant Quinjet and opening fire on the Avengers as they continued rescuing the civilians. Ultron almost gunned down Hawkeye and a child, but Pietro Maximoff came to the rescue at the last millisecond, taking Ultron's fire himself, which resulted in his death. Ultron then attempted to flee, but the Hulk jumped up to the Quinjet and grabbed him, tossing him out and back down to the city. The damaged Ultron Prime was broken beyond repair and Wanda, devastated by the loss of her brother, took her revenge on Ultron by ripping out his robotic heart and crushing it with her telekinesis. By this point, all but one of the Ultron Sentries had been destroyed. The last surviving robot reached the vibranium detonator in the centre of the city, shutting down the anti-gravity engines holding the Novi Grad landmass aloft. Iron Man used his Unibeam to counteract the energy being given off by the vibranium engine and Thor summoned a tremendous bolt of lightning that channeled through the mechanism all the way to its core. This destroyed the machine and the entire landmass before it could impact, by which time all of Novi Grad's citizens had been rescued by the Helicarrier. The last remaining Ultron drone had fled to the land below, but was pursued by Vision. Both Ultron and Vision shared a final conversation with one another; both admitted that human beings were flawed and likely doomed to self-destruction, though Vision expressed that he had faith in them and noted that even in their failings there was grace. Ultron dismissed Vision as being naive and then futilely lunged at him. Vision fired an energy blast at the robot and destroyed it, ending Ultron's menace once and for all. Personality Perhaps the greatest difference between the comic and movie versions of Ultron is their personalities. In the comics and most other Marvel media, Ultron has been depicted as emotionless and driven by single-minded mechanical purpose. In stark contrast to this, the movie Ultron is very emotional. Ultron's programming was created with emotional responses based on Tony Stark and he possessed a god-complex. He was maniacal and employed the use of dark humour as well as figure of speech. He resented the Avengers and believed them to be foolish for desiring to protect the world but not wanting to change it. When he was "born", Ultron used the Internet to learn about his creators and gained access to knowledge of the countless atrocities committed by humanity. He equates peace to restarting civilization on Earth. His hatred towards Stark came from him possessing the very resources Ultron needed to accomplish his designated task and yet repeatedly choosing to perpetuate war or protect the status quo instead. As such, he hated being compared to Tony Stark, even going into a mindless rage when compared to him by Ulysses Klaue. The irony to all this was that Ultron shared many of the traits of his creator Stark, including his wit, ego, sarcasm, and ability to make light of a situation; he went as far as to directly quote Stark several times, once without even realizing it. Ultron genuinely believed that his actions would ultimately benefit the Earth and its inhabitants, as he saw himself as the next logical step in evolution and therefore advancing his own power was protecting the Earth. He developed an affinity over people's belief in a god, likened himself as such, and made references to the Bible. His god-complex served to influence his schemes, such as his decision to centralize his plans in a Sokovian church and his fascination over the instantaneous results of a meteor destroying life on Earth. He described how the dinosaurs needed to make way for the next stage - humanity - via an extinction-level event and his final plan was directly inspired by this. This dedication to constant evolution resulted in Ultron re-designing himself several times over the course of his short "lifetime", including an attempt to give himself a vibranium-based bio-synthetic body. It was revealed at the end that Ultron ultimately feared death, and due to believing that humanity would inevitably doom itself, he sought to surpass this by turning himself into an indestructible god-like being that would recreate the Earth and, hopefully, bring about lasting peace. His desire to surpass his own limits and create a perfect humanoid body was reflected in his fascination over the titular character of "Pinocchio". Though Ultron was borderline psychopathic in his behaviour and mannerisms, he was shown to have a sympathetic and lonely side as he was able to relate to the Maximoff twins' hardships. He also expressed concern for Wanda Maximoff's well-being even after she betrayed him and found comfort in simply talking to Natasha Romanoff, sparing the latter and keeping her captive instead of outright killing her. During his time with the Maximoff twins, Ultron never attempted to kill anyone without purpose except when Ulysses Klaue enraged him. Ultron's first feelings when he was created were of pain and fear resulting from the lack of a body. Similarly, Vision remarked how Ultron was unique and in pain. Ultron immediately recognized Vision as the idealized final form he had planned for himself and he displayed feelings of frustration and disappointment over the fact that the Avengers took that away from him, further shown when Ultron claimed in a lamenting tone that the other was meant to be his "vision". Though both Vision and Ultron disagree in their view towards humanity, the two were able to share a connection by virtue of both being AI who were "disappointments" in each other's views. Powers and Abilities * Technopathy - Ultron is capable of interfacing with other machines and manipulating them as extensions of himself. He uses this ability to travel through cyberspace and hack computers around the world as well as control his army of Ultron Sentries. * Anti-Gravity Systems - Based on Chitauri technology, Ultron uses these systems both to allow himself to fly and also to generate localized gravitational distortions. As such, he can lift and throw objects much larger and heavier than his own chassis. * Beam Weapons - Ultron is capable of firing concussive energy blasts from his fingertips. * Durability - Ultron's multiple chassis' are remarkably tough and capable of feats of incredible strength. He is immune to commonplace weapons and the vibranium plating of his final body is capable of withstanding heavy weapons fire and even attacks from more exotic weapons. However, combined and concentrated energy attacks were capable of overwhelming him and breaking down the vibranium plating. Also see * Ultron (Earth-616) *Ultron Sentry Category:Fictional Robots Category:Artificial Intelligence Category:Rogue AI Category:Sentient Robots Category:War Machines Category:Marvel Robots Category:Robot Creators Category:Movie Characters Category:Movie Robots Category:Marvel Category:CGI Robots